PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD)– A dealership in Woodford County is sifting through damages left by recent storms.
Roanoke Motors owner Matt Gastman says last Friday’s hailstorm caused significant damage
to his fleet — and when that storm pushed through; hail and high winds made it sound like a popcorn machine.
“Major hitting our building noise — we’ve had lighter hail in years past; nothing like this,” Gastman says it looked like someone took a hammer to the hoods. “Most windshields were busted, sunroofs busted through… back glass busted through.”
An insurance adjuster stopped by to assess vehicles with tin and glass damage.
About 120 vehicles were affected by the wrath of the storm.
“It looked like snow on the ground from all the hail we had against the dealership walls piled up, like little drifts of hail,” says Gastman. “We knew that wasn’t a good situation we were in. Thankfully everyone was safe and that was the important thing; our building was still intact.”
He says anyone who wants a tremendous deal and doesn’t care about the damage and dents should come to check out what’s on the lot.
“To fix it correctly obviously we have to fix windshields, sunroofs will be replaced, back glass… the rest of the stuff would probably need to be painted to be done right, some PDR (paintless dent removal) on some,” Gastman says. “A lot of these vehicles will just sell at liquidation sales as is, other than replacing glass and safety components just to get rid of them fast as we can.”
He says the tornado brought business to a halt; he hopes to be back up and running very soon.
